Tag Archives: violence

For those of you who read here regularly or know me personally, you know that fall is my favorite season. Though I know many people love the flowers and the vibrancy of greens in spring, I find the turning of leaves in fall much more beautiful. There is something poignantly graceful about a tree making a vibrant show of color before losing everything and going bare for the winter. Whether it’s an entire tree that is vividly yellow, orange, or red, or whether it’s stumbling across a particularly beautiful fallen leaf, I find my breath being taken away time and again in the fall.

Fall just finally began to show in force this past week where I live. The colors could not have come sooner. In a time filled with anger, hatred, and violence, I have found myself struggling to see beauty around me. Instead of the vibrant red of love, I have seen the ugly color of abuse and subjugation. Instead of flaming orange of peace, I have seen the frightening colors of war and gun violence. Instead of the brilliant yellow of respect and dignity, I have seen demoralizing color of sexism and racism. In such times, I have longed to stumble on a stray leaf of hope.

As my mind has reeled with yet another mass shooting in Texas, more women coming forward to protest assault and harassment, and legislation that seems to value personal gain over the relief of the suffering of the poor, I have been wondering if fall would come at all. And then I realized, perhaps the leaves of hope I have been looking for are everyday people who come into my path and show me vibrant signs of hope. I see hope in a neighboring pastor who told me about the prayer tent he set up in a nearby neighborhood after a shooting that occurred the night before. Children were overjoyed to see his presence as they got off the school bus the next day. I see hope in the yoga teacher who, sensing a need in our community, approached our church to see if we could provide space for a sliding-fee yoga class for people of all income levels. I see hope in children who teach me a profound sense of empathy instead of the reverse.

This week, I invite you to take a look around you in God’s creation to see the signs of hope and love that God is giving you to revive your spirit. And I also invite you to take a look around you at the people who are offering you signs of hope and love this week – even in the small gestures of kindness, generosity, and love. I suspect you will be overwhelmed by the beauty you see, and hopefully inspired to unfurl your own beautiful colors of love, peace, respect, and dignity.

One of the things I love about coming to church week in and week out is the practice setting time aside to discern how Holy Scripture is speaking to our everyday life. Whether I have had a stressful week or a week of celebration, whether I am struggling in life or am experiencing a time of joy, or whether I am pained by the world around me or encouraged by the world around me, the Holy Scripture that we hear on Sunday always finds a way of speaking to me – of comforting, encouraging, challenging, and journeying with me.

But I confess to you I have been struggling to hear a good word from God through Holy Scripture this week. You see, six days ago, we awoke to the news of the deadliest mass shooting in our modern history. I cannot seem to shake the awful images and sounds of that night – the rapid sound of gunfire, the screams of terror in the crowd, the panic created in a crowd who had no idea how to escape the unseen shooter, and the sheer volume of deaths, injuries, and psychological trauma. A week later, having no real leads on motive, all I am left with is the reality of violence in our society that seems inescapable – of one more city to add to the growing list of instances of mass violence: Columbine, Blacksburg, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, Orlando.

With the weight of the sinfulness of our violence upon one another, what I really wanted from Holy Scripture was a balm or a promise from God that love would win. Instead, our gospel lesson today feels more like a mirror of our modern violence. Jesus tells the leaders of the faithful a parable about a landowner who plants a vineyard and entrusts the tending of the vineyard to tenants. When the time comes for the tenants to proudly show the landowner the fruits of their labor, instead the tenants do something awful. They beat, kill, and stone the servants sent by the landowner. And their action is not a one-time occurrence. The landowner sends even more of his servants to the tenants, and they beat, kill, and stone them too. The landowner even sends his own son; but filled with greed, entitlement, and violence, they kill the landowner’s son too. Instead of redemption at the end of the parable, Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

Because this is a parable, we know that Jesus is trying to tell the people of Israel something about themselves. Stanley Hauerwas interprets the parable in this way, “The parable of the wicked tenants can serve as an outline of Matthew’s understanding of the life of Israel. God [calls] Israel to be his vineyard fenced by the law, grounded in the land, and protected by worship of God in the temple. God [sends] his prophets to call the people to faithfulness, but the people beat, [stone], and [kill] them. Finally God [sends] his very Son, but even he [is] rejected…Jesus [leaves] no ambiguity about how this parable is to be understood. The chief priests and the Pharisees [realize] that they are the ‘rejected.’ Yet they are not in any fashion to repent.”[i]

The starkness of Jesus’ parable has left me wondering whether we have become like the tenants in this story. Not knowing the motive of the shooter in Las Vegas, we can somewhat distance ourselves from him – perhaps blaming mental illness or labeling him as an outlier in an otherwise healthy society. But what concerns me more is that this is not an isolated event. This is not the first time I have had to talk about a mass shooting from the pulpit. We have not just beaten, killed, and stoned a couple of servants. We keep committing awful violence, and what is worse is I fear we are becoming desensitized, accepting violence as the status quo – a consequence we are willing to live with in order to have the things we want in life.

In the spiral of darkness between our news feed and Holy Scripture, I had to take a deep breath, praying for some glimmer of hope. So I started with where we started in worship today – with our collect. We prayed, “Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior…” The collect today reminded me that no matter how dark things seem, there is always light to be found.

With the encouragement of the collect, I was able to go back to the parable. I realized that perhaps the tenants, or perhaps even ourselves, are not going to be the origin of our hope. Instead, our hope in darkness rests on God. The landowner in the parable is marked by goodness. The landowner plants the vineyard, puts a fence around it, digs a wine press, and builds a watchtower. Then the landowner allows tenants to use the land, having given them the tools they need, trusting them to care for the land. Heard another way, we hear all the good news of our creative God. God creates this beautiful land which we are given the privilege to tend – our own breathtaking vineyard. And because tending vineyards is hard work, God gives us the “fence” of the law – a set of guidelines to order our common life. God gives us the tools for work, protection, and worship, knowing we will need those things too. God even sends us prophets, knowing we will likely go astray. Eventually, God sends us God’s Son. This parable is the story of God’s covenantal relationship with us – a relationship marked by love, forgiveness, and grace. And just like the whole of our Christian story, there will be moments of faithfulness, and moments of repentance. There will be moments of honor and moments of shame. In spite of the winding nature of our journey, God is ever present, pouring out love, abundance, mercy, and grace. Even on our darkest days, when we crucify God’s Son, God does not answer violence with violence. As one scholar conveys, “… rather than return violence for violence, in the cross of Jesus God absorbs our violence and responds with life, with resurrection, with Jesus triumphant over death and offering, not retribution, but peace.”[ii]

In the midst of stewardship season, I have been wondering all week how in the world I could talk about stewardship today. But I think stewardship might be the perfect response to the seeming hopelessness of the world and this parable. A Journey to Generosity is just that: a journey. Each one of us has been gifted a vineyard to tend, is surrounded by the gift of God’s word to root us in love, is given the tools needed to tend the vineyard, and is promised that even when we are pretty terrible farmers, Jesus will redeem our darkest days. God has given us all we need, walks with us in the darkness, and makes a way for us toward light.

The invitation for us today is two-fold. The first is to go back to the beginning – whether we go back to the collect we heard today, go back to the covenantal stories of our walk with God, or go back to our own vineyard to look around at the abundance in which we find ourselves. Sometimes in order to appreciate where we are in our Journey to Generosity, we have to look back at the faithfulness of God that is often only evident in the rearview mirror. After we have immersed ourselves in the abundance of love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness offered by our God, then we take the next step on our journey. What that next step is will be different for each person in this room. But if we can envision each person in this room as agents of God’s light and love, imagine the collective power we have to drive out darkness, and transform the world into goodness. We do not do this work alone. We are encouraged today by fellow companions on the Journey to Generosity. I cannot wait to hear the stories from your adventures in generosity. God is doing great things through you. And that is reason enough for hope. Amen.

Every once in a while, I am reminded of how bizarre our faith can sound to others. When a child asks a seemingly basic question, or when a non-believing stranger asks me a question that is not easy to explain, I can imagine how strange my responses sound. But having been raised in the faith, the strangeness never bothered me. And if I really was not sure about something, I found myself comfortable with the explanation, “It’s a mystery.”

But lately, I have been barraged by incidents where “It’s a mystery,” just does not cut it! The first instance was the First Holy Communion class I did with David and William a few weeks ago. David and William actually went pretty easy on me. But those classes are always challenging because they do not allow you to simply experience Holy Eucharist – I have to explain Holy Eucharist: from why we process and reverence an instrument of death (the cross had the same purpose as our modern-day electric chair); to what to do when we don’t necessarily believe everything in the Nicene Creed; to why the priest holds out her hands during the Eucharistic prayer. The second instance of “It’s a mystery,” not cutting it was in Bible Study class last week. The group is reading John and John’s rather gory discussion of eating flesh and drinking blood. The group wanted to know what Episcopalians believe about what happens to the bread and wine when the priest consecrates the elements – and how that differs from what other denominations believe. I am fairly certain that if I had told the group that what happens in Eucharist is a mystery, they would not have let me off the hook so easily. The final instance of “It’s a mystery,” not cutting it has been in reading the book, The Year of Living Biblically. In this past week’s assignment, our author, A.J. Jacobs finally makes his way into the New Testament. As an agnostic Jew, the author discusses his fears about trying to live the Bible literally if he cannot get behind the idea of Jesus as the Messiah and the idea of Jesus being both human and divine. As a cynical New Yorker who confesses he has no desire to convert, I am sure my “It’s a mystery,” explanation would get him nowhere.

The challenges of our faith are not limited to worship, Eucharist, and Jesus’ divinity. Today we celebrate yet another bizarre element of our faith – Christ the King Sunday. On this last Sunday of Pentecost, before we enter into the season of Advent, we declare Christ as our King. On the surface, that is not a bizarre claim, I realize. Many communities have kings, and the way we venerate Christ is not unlike the way many kingdoms venerate their kings. Given the familiarity of that image, we might imagine that Christ the King Sunday is about regal processions, festive adornments, and praise-worthy songs. In fact, we will do some of that today. The problem though with Christ the King Sunday is not that Jesus is our King. The problem is what kind of king Jesus is.

We have seen evidence of what kind of king Jesus is. Most famously would be the Palm Sunday procession. Jesus does not ride into Jerusalem on horseback with a sword and an army. No, he rides into town on a borrowed donkey, accompanied by a little crowd – nothing newsworthy really. There are other clues too. There is that time when the Samaritans refuse housing to Jesus and his disciples. The disciples ask, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”[i] But Jesus just rebukes the disciples and keeps on going. Even when Jesus knows Judas is going to betray him, he does not stop Judas. Instead of stopping Judas or outing Judas, Jesus quietly lets Judas leave to betray him.

So we should not be surprised today at the interaction between Pilate and Jesus and why this passage, of all passages, should be selected for Christ the King Sunday. Pilate is perplexed by this man who is being labeled (or more accurately, is being accused of having claimed to be) the king of the Jews. So Pilate asks repeatedly whether Jesus is indeed the king of the Jews. Jesus mockingly explains that if he were a traditional king, his people would be fighting to save him – which they are decidedly not doing. Jesus cryptically further explains that his kingship does not look like kingship in the traditional sense – and in fact, his version of kingship is the only kind of kingship that can save anyone. Violence, retaliation, and revenge will not work.[ii] A battle of wills will not win control. The only thing that will win is sacrifice, selflessness, and ceding. Jesus will not overcome the evil of the world by matching wills with rulers like Pilate. Jesus will only overcome by allowing himself to be overcome. When we really think about Jesus’ kingship, his kingship is yet another bizarre thing about our faith. Who pins their faith on a weak, non-violent, forgiving man?

Given the multiple terrorist attacks we have witnessed over the past week, the irony of Christ the King Sunday is not lost on me. Just this past week, at Lunch Bunch, we were discussing the challenges of engaging in war to stop terrorism verses isolationism. The discussion we had was the same discussion that hundreds of theologians have had for centuries. I have even witnessed top scholars debate the ethics of intervention versus non-violence. We watch Jesus turn the other cheek – in fact, Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, give away our tunics, go a second mile, give to borrowers, and love our enemies.[iii] But we watched what happened in World War II when we stayed out of the war as long as possible – a genocide happened. And we have seen what sanctions do in foreign countries – though they are non-violent, the brunt of the restrictions hit the poorest of the country. And yet, we are also only one country. We cannot possibly fight every force of evil, have troops in every country, and wage war every time evil emerges.

This is one of those times when I would love to say, “It’s a mystery!” We say that phrase because the answer is beyond our knowing – or because we just do not know the answer. Any kind of guessing about “What Would Jesus Do,” is not likely to get us very far. We know that Jesus does not fight Pilate today, and has no intention of answering evil for evil. But we also know that Jesus is wholly other – the Messiah, the Savior, the sacrifice for our sins. His death is different from our deaths, and the kingdom he brings is both already and not yet.

Despite the fact that I cannot give you answers about what we should do about ISIS, about terrorism, or about violence, what I can tell you is that the ambiguity of Jesus’ identity as Christ the King is actually good news today. Now I know ambiguity does not sound like a gift. But in this instance, I believe ambiguity is where we can put our faith today. Ambiguity is a gift today because ambiguity makes us uncomfortable. Because we do not have definitive answers, we are forced to stay in prayer and keep discerning God’s will in this chaotic world. Because we do not have a king who answers violence for violence (which is quite frankly, a very easy black-and-white formula to replicate), we are forced to contemplate our faith in light of the world. Because we follow Christ the King, we do not get to say, “It’s a mystery,” as an excuse not to wrestle.

As I think about the conversations I have had with David and William, with our Thursday Bible Study Group, and even the conversation I would have with A.J. Jacobs, I realize ambiguity is the most honest, vulnerable, real way we can start any conversation about faith and Jesus Christ. And if we ever want a young person, a non-believer, or even someone wise beyond their years to trust that they can have an authentic, meaningful conversation with us about faith, then we have to be willing to step into the ambiguity of faith. One of Jacobs’ advisors talks about the “glory of following things we can’t explain.”[iv] That is what Christ the King offers us today – the opportunity to follow things we cannot always explain. Jesus invites us share our ponderings and struggles with knowing this king who is sometimes counterintuitive. He invites us to relinquish our angst about the ambiguity, and instead to celebrate the King of ambiguity. Amen.

I have been struggling with what to say in the face of recent acts of violence, the American debate about welcoming Syrian refugees, and an overwhelming sense of compassion fatigue and confusion about what is the “right” thing to do when considering war and peace, good and evil, life and death. Theoretical conversations only get us so far. Real life is where our theology is truly tested. This week, instead of being fired up and ready for action, I find myself exhausted – exhausted by our continual ability to treat each other inhumanely, exhausted by an overwhelming sense impotence in the face of suffering and evil, and exhausted by oversimplifications and generalizations that end up justifying our behavior.

In the midst of my exhaustion, fatigue, and inability to articulate anything coherent this week, I celebrated the life and witness of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary at Eucharist today. For those of you who do not know her story, she was born in the early 1200s and was married by age fourteen. She had a passion for the poor; so much so, that her husband allowed her to use her dowry to tend the sick and poor. When a famine struck the land, she sold her jewels to build a hospital to care for others and she opened the royal granary. When her husband died, she was kicked out by the court for her “extravagances.” But she dedicated her life to the sick and poor anyway, and died at age 24 from exhaustion.

As I celebrate another year this month (many more than Elizabeth got to enjoy), I am struck by how much she did in so little time. I am exhausted from thinking and feeling so much. Elizabeth was exhausted from doing so much. And as if I needed any further reminder of what Jesus is calling me to do than Elizabeth’s witness, the gospel lesson assigned today comes from Matthew. Jesus says, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me…Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25.31-40)

While my exhausted heart, mind, and soul are wondering what to make of all of this, Jesus is clear and strong. I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. When I feed, slake, or welcome others, not only am I loving them, but also I am loving Christ Jesus. I am sure Jesus is moved when our hearts and minds pondering these things. But today, Jesus is also inviting us to do. To feed, slake, welcome, clothe, tend, and visit. Because when we do those things, we do them to Jesus.

A long time ago, we got on a boat. We were not really sure what was going to happen while we were out to sea, but we got on the boat because we were curious. We had an experience, or maybe multiple experiences with a man named Jesus, and something about those experiences compelled us to get on the boat. Maybe the experience happened as early as Sunday School, maybe the experience happened when we were confirmed, or maybe the experience happened as an adult. We may not even be able to articulate the reason why we got on the boat. But all of us, at some point, step onto the boat, however tentatively or boldly, and we sail with Jesus to the other side.

The disciples have that same experience in today’s gospel lesson from Mark. After a long day of preaching and teaching, during which Jesus pulls them aside and explains parables to them, Jesus says, “Let us go across to the other side.” Now if the disciples had been smart, they would have asked some questions: “What is on the other side? What if a storm comes? Can’t we just stay here and get a good night’s rest? This place is familiar and comfortable.” And they should have asked questions. The “other side” of that body of water is exactly that – other. The other side is Gentile territory, the land of the Gerasenes. Jesus is taking his first journey into what might be considered dangerous, and even inappropriate. Jesus is beginning a ministry beyond just the Jews.[i] “Let us go across to the other side,” is no “Hey, let’s mix things up this year and go to Cabo.” Yes, the disciples should have asked a lot more questions.[ii]

But they do not. Something about this Jesus compels them forward, stepping on and manning that boat without question. That’s the funny thing about Jesus. We too got on a boat because of him, probably having no idea what we were getting into. Suddenly we find ourselves cooking casseroles, watering gardens, and bringing in men’s undergarments for our needy neighbors. Suddenly we find ourselves getting asked by the Rector to serve on some committee. Suddenly we find the news of the day is not so simple when we remember all those words we said in our baptismal covenant about seeking and serving Christ, loving our neighbor as ourselves, and sharing the Good News. We really should have asked more questions before we got on that boat to follow Jesus.

I have been thinking about that boat a lot this week. You see, some of our fellow disciples were murdered this week – nine to be exact, in Charleston, South Carolina. They were praying and reading Holy Scripture – just like we do every Thursday. They even welcomed in a stranger that night – like Jesus always tells us to do. That very stranger turned out to be crazy, filled with racist rage, and willing to kill nine people before fleeing. At least that was how I saw the episode at first. At first, this was another instance of a crazy person, senselessly killing other people. But then the prophets of our time began to speak. The prophets reminded me that violence proliferates in our society. The prophets reminded me that because we cannot agree on a reasonable gun policy, more and more people die in our backyards. The prophets reminded me that our African-American brothers and sisters in this country experience very fragile and virtually non-existent safety – they cannot even be safe in church. There was a part of me that wanted to stay on the shore this week and say, “Oh, Jesus, that was just an isolated event by a crazy kid with extremist views.” But I had already gotten on the boat. It was too late. And a storm began to rage.

That storm for me was the storm of our time: a storm of violence, racism, and suffering. No longer could I contain each story: Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, Sandy Hook, Baltimore, Columbine, Selma, Charleston. One story bled into another, and as I was reminded of each one, I felt the buckets of water dousing my face. As I thought about every conversation I have had about how racism is not dead, I felt the water creeping up to my waist. As I thought about the historical shadow of the oppression of others in our country, I wanted to cry out to God. And all I could think about was Jesus on that stupid boat, asleep on a cushion in the stern. Who can sleep at a time like this? Doesn’t Jesus care about us at all? Why couldn’t we have just stayed on the shore in that comfortable, familiar place instead of getting on the God-forsaken boat with a man who does not seem in the least bit bothered by our suffering?

The disciples know that feeling. They are experienced at life on a boat. At least when they get on the boat, they knew how to manage a boat. They know the dangers and the perils, and have learned to navigate them for the necessity of survival. But even these experienced fishermen are scared. They have tried to control the boat, they have scooped out as much water as they can, and they know they have met their match. And so they go to their last resort. They wake up Jesus and shout, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?!?” When they got on that boat, this is not what they were expecting. They were expecting the fulfillment of a promise – the fulfillment of a different life and a different world: the kingdom of God here on earth. Instead they were going down fast with a man who could not even stay awake and fight the good fight with them.

I shouted those words this week too. Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? Maybe we brought all this violence on ourselves, but surely you care? Surely you did not lure me onto this boat – into this relationship with you – only to watch us perish? Though I wanted more than anything to think this was an isolated event of a crazy person doing something ungodly, I could not ignore the storm swirling around.

I struggled to find hope today in our gospel lesson. All I saw was Jesus scolding the disciples for their fear and their lack of faith. And then I saw disciples even more afraid than before – which is saying something given the awfulness of that storm. Straining for some strand of hope – some glimmer of redemption – I came back to that invitation from Jesus, “Let us go across to the other side.” Jesus does not tell the disciples to go to the other side alone. Jesus does not say, “Go to the other side without me.” Jesus says, “Let us go to the other side.”[iii] Whether the disciples felt like Jesus was with them during that storm or not, Jesus was with them. That may not seem like much, but that may be the biggest miracle of all in this story. As one scholar writes, “God’s power isn’t in the control of creation or of people, but in being in covenant and relationship with them. [God’s power] isn’t in imposing the divine will or insisting on its own way but in sojourning with us as we fumble around and make our way in the world. God’s power is not in miraculous interventions, pre-emptive strikes in the cosmic war against suffering and evil, but in inviting us to build a kingdom out of love, peace, and justice with God. God’s power is not in the obliterating of what is bad in the world, but in empowering us to build something good in this world.”[iv]

A long time ago, we got on a boat. We did not know where we were going, what we would see, or who we would encounter. All we knew was that Jesus was inviting us into a different life, and we felt compelled by this passionate, nonsensical man. Oh, we had clues. We knew that the “other side,” was not a place we wanted to go. We knew that going there might change us, and change our entire worldview. We knew that getting on that boat would mean stepping away from the familiar, comfortable coastline, and sailing into something different and scary.[v] But Jesus said he would go with us. Jesus invited us on a journey with him and something deep inside us, despite the little devil on our shoulder telling us to stay put, told us to step onto that boat.

I am still scared of the storm. In fact, I am a little afraid of Jesus too. But what brings me comfort this week is that Jesus is with us. Jesus does not invite us onto a boat and let us sail alone. And though Jesus may have an ability to sleep through a storm, with complete confidence in the direction of God, I also know that Jesus will wake up and respond to me when I call out his name. He may not say what I want to hear. He may leave me feeling more uncomfortable than getting soaked in a storm. But he is here. Jesus is here on our boat, and can make things right. We just have to be prepared to go to the other side. Amen.